


I'm Done

by JessTheEspeon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: mature cause i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessTheEspeon/pseuds/JessTheEspeon
Summary: Marinette's had enough, and she's taking things into her own hands now
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	1. Flight

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a blind fury honestly

“I’m done! I’m fucking done!” The class snapped to Marinette, hands thrown up and red in the face.

“Why are you so invested in fighting Lila, Marinette? Are you really that jealous?” Alya’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to figure out when her friend had jumped off the deep end. 

Mari scoffed. “Jealous? I’m so far past jealous it’s almost comical. You wanna know how I know Lila’s a dirty, disgusting, thieving liar, Alya? You wanna know?”

Tikki tried to get her attention, begging her to stop before she did something irreversible, but it was no use. She’d set her mind on a course of action, and she’d be damned if she strayed from her path now. 

“I’m going to tell you.” Her voice went eerily calm. “I’m going to tell you everything, and you’re not going to say anything until I’m done.”

Marinette took a deep breath.

“Before I get started, though, I need to say some things. Alya, you’re never going to be Rena Rouge again. Nino, and this really hurts, because you were my childhood best friend, and I thought that meant something, but apparently not! You’re never going to be Carapace again. Chloe, you ever getting the Bee Miraculous was a mistake, but I’m definitely not giving you a second shot at it now. And don’t any of you think of running after me and trying to apologize after this, because I’m done. I’m done with this entire class, and I hope Hawkmoth doesn’t attack the school for a good long while after this, because I don’t know if I’m going to want to save you all.”

Alya was about to open her mouth and demand how Marinette knew she was Rena Rouge, but Marinette didn’t give her a chance.

“I know Lila Rossi is a liar because I saw her steal Adrien’s father’s book from his satchel and use it to claim she was the holder of the Fox Miraculous. I know she never left Paris after being akumatized because she was here on Heroes Day, making illusions of me and Chat Noir fighting so Hawkmoth could prey on all of the citizens’ fear and turn them into akuma. I know she’s never saved Jagged Stone’s kitten because I know Jagged personally, and he prefers reptiles. He’s had Fang longer than Lila’s been alive. I know her livestream from Achu was fake because it was clearly a poster. There were no people in the streets and not once did a bird fly into frame. But most of all… most of all, I know she’s a goddamned liar about being Ladybug’s friend.”

“What, because you know Ladybug personally?” Chloe yelled from up front, clearly stung by the thought of never being Queen Bee again. 

Marinette’s stare bored right into her soul as she hammered the final nail into Lila’s coffin. “No, Chloe-fucking-Bourgeois, my least favorite bully of four fucking years. I know she’s lying because she’s not my friend.”

Lila latched onto the bait immediately. “What, are you trying to say you’re Ladybug? Wow, this is low, even for you, Marinette!” Her high pitched laugh rocked through the room, but no one was laughing with her. 

“Tikki. Spots on.”

The pink light enveloped the room, and there stood Paris’ protector, righteous in her fury. “Next time you try to lie about me, Lila, consider that I’m the only one standing between you and my fists. Go get akumatized again, I dare you. I’m not going to hold back.” 

As she walked towards the window, prepared to leave this school forever, Adrien finally spoke up. 

“My Lady?”

A barely audible ‘no way’ came from Nino as his best friend stood up, tears in his eyes.

“Plagg, claws out!” 

Tears streamed down Chat Noir’s eyes as Ladybug stared at him, half-shocked, half-enraged. She recovered quickly enough. The first sound she made was a strangled, high-pitched laugh.

“Of course Mister High Road himself is Chat Noir. Of course! Did you think for even a second, Adrien, that maybe it would be easier to out Lila earlier and fight one person instead of everyone she’s hurt with her lies? You’d rather fight thirteen akumas instead of one?” Marinette’s eyes shone with angry tears she refused to shed. “Or is it that you hate me that much? You know, she threatened me in the bathroom. She said I could join her or she’d turn everyone against me. And she did! Everyone in here hates me! They all think I’m some jealous, boy-crazy bully to the new kid! And I tried to take the high road, I really did try! But I can’t take it any more! I’ve been protecting everyone in here for so long, but who’s protecting me, Chat? Who? Apparently you’re fucking not!”

He could see that she was on the edge of hysterics and tried to reach out to her, say anything that would calm her down.

“Stay away from me, Adrien! All of you, just stay away! I’m done being your everyday Ladybug if this is how you treat me! I’m done! Lila wins! Go tell Hawkmoth, I know you’re buddy-buddy with him! Tell him to come after me personally! Kidnap my fake fucking friends, use them as a ransom for these earrings! I dare you! Enjoy your new friends, Lila, enjoy them until they turn on you when someone cooler shows up! I hope you’re happy!” 

Her yoyo arced through the sky, and then she was gone.

Faintly, Adrien wondered if everyone was going to turn on Lila. They were all too shocked to do anything but stare blankly at the chalkboard, though. He fell back down onto his seat with an audible ‘thunk.’

When Mlle. Bustier walked in, she couldn’t figure out why all her students looked so dead, or why Chat Noir was sitting in Adrien’s seat.

“I-is there something wrong? Chat Noir? Where are Adrien and Marinette?”

Adrien’s lip quivered as he answered. “She’s gone, Miss Bustier. Marinette left.”

The noise was finally enough to break the spell over everyone. 

“I bullied Ladybug for years!” Chloe shrieked.

Alya started subbing. “She was my best friend, and I told her she was just jealous!”

“Your best friend?” Adrien rounded on her. “She’s the love of my life, and I told her not to out Lila, and now she’s gone!”

“Bro, you knew?” Nino looked over at him, hurt clearly etched on his already pained face. 

Adrien slammed his hands on the desk. “Of course I knew! She’s the worst liar to ever exist! But she’s been akumatized three times, and I didn’t want to keep fighting her!”

Mlle. Bustier slapped a ruler on the desk to get everyone’s attention. “Someone tell me what is going on, right now.”

“Marinette is Ladybug, Lila’s been lying to the entire class, and now she’s ran off somewhere!”

“Adrien, you have to go after her.” Chloe spoke up suddenly, leaping across her desk and grabbing him by the wrists. “What if she’s about to get akumatized?!”

He took off out the same window she’d left from, screaming her name. Both of them.

Chloe turned to the rest of the room. “Well? Are we going to let Ladybug get akumatized? Come on!” Her voice got higher and higher as she talked.

“She said not to go after her.” Nathaniel murmured.

“It’s Marinette, for fuck’s sake, we’re not going to let the nicest person we know get akumatized because she doesn’t want to see us! Now come on!”

The entire class, Mlle. Bustier included and Lila excluded, stampeded out of the school to go rescue the nicest, most dangerous girl they knew.

Lila sat in the classroom, waiting for a black butterfly that never appeared. 

That butterfly was flapping its little wings as hard as it could, trying to keep up as Marinette “Ladybug” Dupain-Cheng flew over the city. 


	2. Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is also taken from my writeblr @jesspeonwrites, go gimme a follow if you wanna read some of my other stuff. I'm only putting finished things on AO3 (so if you want earlier access go hit me up)

When Marinette finally came to a shuddering, shaking, bone-tired stop, she had no idea where she was. Just that she was very, very far from home. Her breath rattled every bone in her body and she finally, finally allowed herself the tears she’d been denying ever since her confrontation nearly… three hours ago. She’d been running for three hours straight. 

The realization dropped her to her knees, and now she was crying for a second reason. Her entire body burned, even through the Miraculous, and she knew she was going to be sore for days, if not weeks. 

The butterfly landed less than a meter away as Hawkmoth considered his options. This was Ladybug, his archnemesis, and her emotions screamed ‘betrayal’ at him. Did he chance it? Did he dare try to akumatize the one person he’d never been able to before?

Yes. He dared.

The akuma landed gently on her earrings and he was overwhelmed by the negative energy inside her head. It took a moment before he could regain his composure and actually speak. 

“L-Ladybug?”

“Go away.”

He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ladybug, I am Hawkmoth, I-”

“I SAID GO AWAY!” She shrieked, startling some passers-by on the street below. 

“You don’t want to seek revenge on your classmates?”

“LEAVE ME ALONE FOR FUCK’S SAKE HAWKMOTH! I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO OR SEE ANYONE RIGHT NOW, LEAST OF ALL YOU! GO AKUMATIZE LILA, I KNOW YOU TWO ARE BUDDY-BUDDY!” She started hyperventilating again as shivers wracked through her body. “I want to be alone! Please! Just leave me alone…” Her voice cracked as she pleaded with him. 

Hawkmoth looked through her eyes, felt every shiver of her body and felt her emotions leeching into him. This was more powerful than anything he’d dealt with before, and he wasn’t sure he was equipped to handle it. He had to try, though.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

It was like a switch flipped somewhere in her mind. Every last drop of sadness and desperation disappeared, replaced with liquid rage. 

“Who the FUCK do you think you are?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, who the FUCK do you think you are? Oh, yeah, let me just pour my heart and soul out to a fucking supervillain who wants to use me to destroy Paris, real fucking smart! Is that what you did to Lila, too? Manipulated her, abused her, all so you could get my Miraculous? Eat shit.” 

Hawkmoth didn’t realize what Ladybug was doing until it was too late. Suddenly his senses were overloaded as she dominated his will, taking over his body like he’d done to akuma victims and looking through his eyes at the scenery from his lair’s window. It was… familiar, somehow. 

She only had a few seconds before he pushed back, forcing the akuma out of her earrings and racing with it to find someone else to fight her with. It didn’t matter. She’d placed his window, and she was on her way back to end this once and for all. It wouldn’t matter if her identity was revealed if there was no Hawkmoth to torment her.

Mayura met her halfway, screaming like a banshee about ‘how dare she’ and ‘you have no right to attack him like that.’ Marinette took her down in a matter of minutes, taking her Miraculous and revealing Nathalie Sancoeur, stranded on a rooftop an hour and a half away from Francois-Dupont and the Agreste Mansion. She called the cops while she ran, clipping the brooch onto her suit and telling the new kwami to hang on if she didn’t want to get left behind. 

Before she could get to the Agreste Mansion, her class found her. She ignored them, streaming past on a mission to destroy Gabriel Agreste. 

Chat Noir’s boots clacked against the rooftops behind her.

“Did you know, Adrien?”

“Know what?!”

“Did you know your father was Hawkmoth? Was this whole partnership a sham?”

Abruptly, the footsteps stopped. She didn’t turn around to find out why. 

Ladybug crashed through the window and its accompanying cover with little fanfare, slinging her yoyo around wildly while she looked for Hawkmoth. He wasn’t in there, which meant he’d either fled or was hiding in the mansion. 

“Come out come out Gabriel! It’s time to give up!” 

Glass crunched behind her and she instinctively threw her yoyo. Chat Noir stumbled to the floor. 

“What the hell do you want?” She didn’t release him. “Come to help your dad?”

“Of course not, Marinette! I would never! I’m trying to help you!”

“You can help me by staying the fuck away. I’m done with you never respecting me as a partner and refusing to see over those rose-tinted glasses you always have on. I’m not in love with you, Adrien! I told you over and over and over and you just wouldn’t stop! Don’t you get it? God, and I did have a crush on you! I rejected Chat Noir every damn time because I was so hung up on Adrien Agreste, and lo and behold, it’s you! What a fucking surprise!” 

“You had a crush on me?”

“No shit sherlock.” She snarled, snapping her yoyo back into her hand. “Go think on that for a while, if you want. I’ve got a shit fashion designer to catch.”

She swung back out the lair’s window and immediately back into the window of Gabriel’s study. Emilie’s picture was still hanging, giant and benevolent. Gabriel was standing with his back to Marinette, staring at it. 

“Game’s up.”

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Enough talk, asshole. Hand over the Miraculous. I’m done using Paris as a giant chess-board.”

“I did it all for her, Ladybug. To bring her back. For my son. To make our family whole again.”

“Maybe if you paid a little more attention to your son, you’d have noticed you were breaking your family even more.” She looked around the room, waiting for a trap. “Maybe you would have noticed him breaking out of his room every night as Chat Noir.”

“What?” Gabriel whirled around as she pounced, knocking him over and wrenching the brooch from his shirt once his tie was knocked aside. 

She stood over him, cold and calculating. “Your son. My partner. Ex-partner.”

She clipped the Butterfly brooch right next to the Peacock’s and watched as Gabriel mouthed ‘Nathalie,’ surprised that she’d lost hers as well.

“Goodbye, Gabriel Agreste. Have fun in prison. I’m sure your secretary is already well on her way.” 

She had one last stop to make before returning everything to Master Fu.

She landed in the lair where Adrien was sitting among the broken glass, turning pieces around to watch the rainbows scatter over the dark lair. The butterflies had all fled once the window had been broken.

“Give me your Miraculous.”

“Marinette--”

“GIVE ME your Miraculous.” She repeated, harsher. 

“I will, just… can we talk? Please?”

“About what?”

“About… everything.”

She growled, looking outside as the class finally arrived, swarming the gates and screaming obscenities at Gabriel.

“You have five minutes.”

Adrien took a deep breath, prepared to lay all his cards on the table and hoping against hope that it would be enough to make Marinette stay.

“I didn’t want you to out Lila because… because I didn’t want her to get akumatized. Because I knew she wouldn’t change, she would just get angrier and angrier and keep taunting you with whatever she could get away with. And if you outed her, she would just move again and start over somewhere else. I wasn’t thinking about how she would hurt everyone else in the meantime.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. 

“I kept pursuing you as Chat Noir because I thought that if I tried hard enough, if I proved myself, you would eventually fall in love with me. You know my home life isn’t that great and that I’m a completely different person as Chat Noir versus Adrien. You… you’re the only person who’s seen both sides. I don’t want people to like Adrien. Adrien is fake. Adrien goes to photoshoots, fancy dinners, has perfect grades and perfect hair and twenty extracurriculars and no time for friends. I… I don’t mean to make this about me, I’m sorry. I just… I want you to know where I’m coming from.”

“You’re a kid from an abusive home. I might not know what that’s like, but your “best friend” Chloe,” she put up air quotes, “bullied me for years. It’s not an excuse to hurt other people. Three minutes.”

She heard police sirens sounding from far away and knew it wouldn’t be long before all of this was over once and for all.

“Ah… everyone wants you to know they’re sorry… I know you said no one was allowed to apologize, but I want you to know anyways. They all want you to come back, and Chloe was the one who told everyone to go out and look for you to make sure you weren’t akumatized. She’s… she’s got a lot on her mind right now. Everyone does. I understand if you want to leave still, but… we’d all miss you. A lot. Especially me. I know you’re mad, and rightfully so, but I still think you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

While Adrien droned on, Marinette realized that he was probably going to be shipped off somewhere now that the mansion was a crime scene. Unless Gorilla was going to take over the mansion, he’d have nowhere to go.

She tuned back in as he finished his grand love confession, twisting the ring around and around on his finger. 

“...Before you take it… can I say goodbye to Plagg?”

She took several slow, deep breaths before answering. “You’re coming to Fu’s with me. It’s not my decision. Not yet.”

They ran in strained silence, ditching the officers at the mansion and making sure none of them were stupid enough to follow.

Master Fu was glued to his television when they slipped in through the window. He was thankful Marinette hadn’t broken it like both of Gabriel’s.

“I have the Peacock and Butterfly. The Peacock is broken, but Duusu’s… fine I guess.” Nooroo and Duusu appeared shyly from inside Marinette’s pigtails, looking around the room.

Master Fu nodded, smiling at the two. It fell when he saw the look on Ladybug’s face. “Are you alright, Ladybug?”

“You can call me Marinette, Master. Everyone else knows.”

“You revealed yourself?”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter any more, Hawkmoth and Mayura are going to prison and I got their Miraculous.”

“I told the class not to reveal you. Or me.” Adrien murmured.

“Your entire class knows?!” Master Fu’s voice rose an octave. 

Marinette sighed, restraining herself from rolling her eyes. “Yes, they all know. It doesn’t matter, because we’re done. Right? We got the Miraculous, we’re not needed any more.”

Master Fu didn’t respond.

“Right???” Marinette repeated.

“I had planned for you both to keep your Miraculous once this was over. I had assumed you wouldn’t want to give them up. Have you spoken with Tikki about this?”

Marinette’s face reddened slightly. She hadn’t thought about Tikki at all during her outburst. Her kwami was probably furious at her for revealing herself. Ah well, she could deal with that later. 


	3. Fin (and Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh what a cliffhanger (no I'm not adding more sorry :/)

“Chat Noir, er, Adrien, would you mind giving me and Lady-- Marinette-- a moment?” Master Fu asked. Adrien nodded slowly and left through the window to find somewhere to wait. 

“Marinette, what brought all of this on?”

The day’s events all came flooding back into her mind as she retold her story, right from when Lila first joined the class. Master Fu sighed and nodded his way through the whole thing.

“I am proud you put up with her as long as you did, knowing everything you knew about her. But why today? What pushed you over the edge?”

“She attacked my family, Master. She attacked my family and Ladybug. If she’d just kept it to me, I could’ve handled it a bit longer. But I won’t stand for anyone trying to attack my parents. They worked hard to get where they are today.” Her voice was bitter and sharp and oh-so-quiet as she spoke. 

“I think you should speak with Tikki before making any decisions. She probably has a lot to say to you.” 

“...Spots off.”

Tikki didn’t move when she finally re-appeared, curled in on herself and terrified that people were going to start yelling. When she didn’t hear anything, the kwami finally opened her eyes. She saw Marinette, tired and red in the eyes. Master Fu with an expression she hadn’t seen since ‘the incident.’ And the peacock and butterfly brooches, resting innocently on her shirt. Duusu and Nooroo tackled her in a hug when she finally spotted them. 

“Oh, Marinette!” Fat tears started rolling down her face as she hugged the other kwami close. It had been years since she’d seen them. When they let go, she flew directly into her chosen. “I’m so sorry Marinette! I’ve been a terrible kwami! I should’ve helped you more, then this never would’ve happened!” 

“It’s not your fault, Tikki.” Marinette murmured, cupping her hands around the kwami. “You’re one of the only people who stayed by my side throughout the whole thing.”

“But it wasn’t enough!” 

“Tikki…” Marinette sighed. “You can’t do everything and fix everyone, Tikki. This was building up for a long time.”

Master Fu smiled, sensing a small bit of warmth returning to the Ladybug he’d met that day in the street. Perhaps she would be alright.

“Well, Marinette? Are you really going to give up the earrings?”

“WHAT?!” Tikki shrieked, flying in front of Fu’s face.

“Tikki, calm down. I was just angry. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” Marinette’s hands closed around the front of her kwami as she gently pried her out of Master Fu’s personal space. “It would be pretty stupid of me to get rid of my one true friend.”

“And what about Chat Noir?”

Marinette sighed, glancing at the window he’d left from. “It’s up to you, really. Paris doesn’t need us now that there’s no magical threat. And he’s probably going to be devastated once it hits him.”

“Once what hits him?” Tikki chirped. 

“His father was Hawkmoth and Nathalie was Mayura.”

For once, Tikki didn’t have a comment. 

Master Fu crossed to the window. “Adrien, you can come back now.”

Chat Noir swung into the window, twisting his ring around his finger nervously again and refusing to make eye contact with Marinette. 

“You can keep your ring, Chat Noir. We’re not taking it from you.” 

All the tension in Adrien’s body left at once as he detransformed. “Plagg, they’re not making us separate!” 

“Oh thank you Master, thank you Ladybug, thank you Tikki!” Plagg, in a rare display of emotion, went around the room hugging everyone. He screamed and hugged Duusu and Nooroo when he saw them. 

Adrien finally turned to Marinette when Plagg had calmed down. “What made you change your mind?”

She stuck him with a cold glare, but it was just a bit less frigid than before. “You’re going to need Plagg when the shock finally sets in.”

In the back of Adrien’s mind, he knew it was coming. It just hadn’t gotten there yet. So, he was going to make as much use of his remaining time as he could before he turned into a crying, screaming mess. “Are you really going to transfer schools? And what about the class? What are you going to do about Lila?”

“Maybe, I don’t care, and honestly, probably tell the cops that she’s Hawkmoth’s accomplice as much as Mayura is.”

“What about… me?”

“What about you, Adrien?” She retorted. 

“All that stuff you said about having a crush on me!”

“Yeah? I meant it all. That blue scarf you like so much? I made that for you, not your dad. All those pictures you saw on Jagged’s show at my house? I’m into fashion, but not that much. I was so obsessed with you I had a pull-down chart of your schedule so I could make excuses to go see you. Every single time I rejected Chat Noir, I was thinking of Adrien Agreste. And wow, I really dodged a bullet! Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘no?’ Because damn! You don’t give up! It would be admirable if it wasn’t a warning sign for an abusive relationship! Learn to respect people, maybe? Just maybe?”

Her words stung, but she didn’t deliver them with the rage she’d felt earlier. It was like she was stating simple facts and giving him advice on how to deal with them.

“I-I could say the same about you! I never took any other girls seriously because you had my heart the whole time!” 

“So you admit your date with Kagami meant nothing? She’s obsessed with you, Adrien. So is Chloe, and so is Lila. How do you think you’ve made all of them feel? Not that I care about any of them, but that’s not the point.”

“She’s my friend!”

“Yeah, ‘Just-A-Friend’ Agreste, how could I forget? Tikki, how many times has he called me ‘Just a friend?’” Marinette turned to her kwami.

“Um… I don’t know, for sure. Plagg?”

“Ooh, I remember this! I kept track!!” Plagg thought about it for a moment, counting off silent on his fingers. “All in all? Over thirty times!”

“Plagg, not helping!” Adrien whined. The cat god snickered quietly. 

Marinette gave him another withering stare. “I don’t care what you do from here on out. I’m living for myself.”

~Epilogue~

Marinette gave Francois-Dupont a week to redeem itself, and it failed spectacularly. Sure, plenty of people apologized about not believing her sooner, and Max seemed genuinely contrite, bringing up plenty of figures and research he’d done in the aftermath and berating himself for not investigating sooner, but the damage had already been done. 

Lila had fled the country mere hours after Hawkmoth and Mayura were outed and arrested, and all major airports had been put on lockdown. She was apprehended all the way in the United States. 

Marinette left Francois Dupont and ended up at Kagami’s private school, where she was only known by her awards and accomplishments. Surprisingly, her and Kagami’s friendship blossomed after she explained that she had zero interest in Adrien any more. Kagami quickly lost interest in him after Marinette explained just what had happened, leaving out the superhero stuff. 

For all the promises her class had broken and all the trust they’d betrayed, no one leaked Marinette or Adrien’s identity. They still went on their usual patrols, and after many many months their friendship began to recover. In the meantime, Marinette had explored her other options in boys and found that Luka, while being a total sweetheart, might not be a good choice, given that he was going to be at university soon and she’d have to break her heart all over again.

Slowly, slowly, Paris returned to a famous tourist destination instead of a terrorist capital.

Slower, slower, Marinette returned to her cheerful, caring self.

Slowest, slowest, Lila plotted her revenge from a juvenile detention center. 


End file.
